Man, I can't wait to see how this turns out on the coming weeks! If this works, they might be able to use this same type of procedure to help out other eye conditions. My sister has some pretty bad scarring in one of her eyes which they can't fix with surgery, but I'm wondering if the reason they can't currently fix it isn't because of the scarring itself, as they are apparently getting pretty handy with retinal transplants, so maybe a related procedure to this could help. Does anyone have further information on this procedure and what else it may be applied to in the future, such as the damage caused by glaucoma?
The QPL version 2.0 will hopefully end the license discussions once and for all and get us all back to coding again.
Not likely, Eirik. Sorry to bear bad tidings. Developers such as these try to do the right thing, but they aren't lawyers, and open source licenses still have yet to be put to the test in the courts, so nobody is really sure how they are going to stand up anyhow. Hell, GPL supporters spend gigabytes arguing over the fine points of the GPL, nevertheless other licenses. So there are no truly effective guidelines to creating an open source license, and "just use the GPL" doesn't work for everyone, nor should it have to.
It seems as though there is a decidedly hostile atmosphere surrounding open source software; when a company decides to open the source to their code, they seem to be opening themselves up to attacks against their business practices by the OSS legions, even when they had no problems when the source was closed! Admittedly, it is a small portion of the open source supporters that do this, but they are quite vocal, and the last thing that a company needs when considering a controversial (within the business community) move like opening the source code to their software, needs is bad press associated with the decision. I am certainly glad that Trolltech was not in this position, as they were already OSS supporters, but even they, after having showed this support for several years, still get flak from the community because there license wasn't written to the critic's specifcations, as if Trolltech was going to announce tomorrow, "Ha, fuck you! We left a nice little loophole in our license, so no more damn source code for you!" Its a wonder that traditionally closed source businesses ever decide to open their source, considering the immense risk, not from hax0rs or competitiors, but from the bad press that can result from the crowing of OSS supporters! It never ceases to amaze me how a bunch of computer geeks suddenly become Harvard law professors just because the law happens to involve software. Give these folks a break, already; sure, their licenses may not be ironclad bastions of open source might, but damn, try to be cool about it! After all, they were cool enough to release the source code to their products, and they sure as hell didn't have to do that, as closed source software seems to sell just fine.
Heh, methinks that you think of too large a scale.:) Why not start a local LUG? Hell, it costs next to nothing if you just take a little time and trouble to spread the word yourself. You'd be amazed at how cool some local shop owners can be about letting you pimp your LUG in their shop. Don't worry about attending some big show, just get other Linux geeks in your area to come hang out in the same place to talk tech and swap distros. After a while, when you have quite a few people in the LUG who are willing to put in a little work, you can host a little installfest; nothing major, just a local event to allow the closet Linux geeks in your area to come out and hang with the LUG in an uninvolved manner, unlike if they attended a meeting. It also gives local business folks and non-Linux techies a chance to come take a peek and see what the hell the ruckus is about.
Conferences are all fine and good when there is a huge following in a region or you have a lot of experience in organizing gatherings and want to try something on a large scale, but since the scene in your area appears to be so dead that you only know a couple of other Linux users, you should take the initiative to start a little something of your own to help spread the word and build interest in your area. Who knows? In a couple of years, after you have a few small installfests under your belt and have planned a couple of decent conferences, maybe you'll be the one planning the Linux blowout of the year, with Linus doing the keynote honors.:)
Man, if I had a sweet looking rig like a Cray 2, I'd have to toss in a decent computer with an excellent sound card, craploads of hard drive space and a network card. Then I'd drop all of my MP3s on it, mount some killer speakers around it and have the most badass sound system around.:) Damn, but that Cray 2 looks sweet...
I can certainly understand not worrying about it if you just buy a new system every couple of years, but for those of us who try to keep every piece of hardware for as long as possible, even after upgrading, it does make sense to squeeze out as much life as possible by taking simple precautions such as extra cooling or even underclocking. Hell, I still have a TI Silent 700 data terminal, an 8086 system and a little 286 that still run perfectly fine (well, the ink ribbon on the Silent 700 is pretty dry, so it prints VERY light:)), so I understand the value of taking care of my equipment. It just depends on whether you want to have the CPU be usable in ten years.:)
Please don't take this the wrong way, as I really do think that you had some interesting points, but your really need to put some paragraph breaks in large chunks of writing; most people reading this thread probably skipped over your post due to the mass conflag of letters that assaulted their eyes in a solid block.
I'm not flaming you, honestly I'm not, I'm simply suggesting that in the future when you write out long pieces, break them down into shorter paragraphs to make them more esthetically pleasing to the eye, as large blocks of text without breaks are uncomfortable to deal with. I do appreciate you fleshing out your ideas, though.:)
Heh, you might want to look at Siggy's mods on his past messages. Hell, I'd toss you a point for Insightful just for drawing that WB reference; after all, they both spew forth loads of crap, are well aware that what they spew forth is crap and yet they both nail down the ratings. There's something to be said for knowing the demographic that you're playing to, even if they don't really know themselves.:)
Apparantly there is a terrible amount of legislation, along with the wasted expense and time, necessary to make the Internet "kid friendly," so why not just cut the crap and make the smart decision: Ban kids from using the Internet. "Oh no," you say, "its such a wonderous resource for them to learn from! We can't do that!" Cry me a river; there is NOTHING available on the Internet that kids cannot get from somewhere else, and with reasonable ease. The best that I could do in high school is to dial into BBSs, looking for Doom WADs; sure as hell never found any research paper materials there. So how could I ever have possibly learned anything? I went to the friggin' library! I went to the museum! I picked up that dead tree copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica vol. 8 and started reading!
Why in the hell does everything on the bloody planet have to be "kid friendly"? What about us adults; you know, the people responsible for actually keeping society running?!? A while back, the local gummint decided that full nudity in a strip club was unacceptable, so they passed a law that required a modicum of cover on the dancers. Know why? For the sake of children, according to the pencilheads that pushed it through. Since I haven't stepped foot in a strip club since I left the Navy, I shouldn't sweat it though, right? Hell with that, I was rightly pissed off. Restricting the behavior of consenting adults in a place that kids can't even enter?!? Shit, if that doesn't hammer down a precident...
What the hell happened? I am really dying to know this, its not just rhetorical spewage. I would love to know what sickness has overcome this country that has everyone convinced that everything must revolve around the segment of the population that doesn't contribute anything to society except sewage and noise! I'm a father, I love my daughter dearly and would kill anyone who would try to harm her in any way; but by the same token, I am not such a repressed simpleton to think that other people's actions should be legislated just to grant her the ability to do something that she really doesn't need to be doing anyhow!
Do I really think that children should be banned from using the Internet? No, of course not, but if the only other choice is to shape the Internet around children, then that's the vote I take. When it comes to government legislation, you can't have it both ways; there may be advantages to a new bill, but there will always be a corollary inherent to it as well. Its just a matter of how much freedom that you are willing to trade for security.
Simply because I would like my privacy while I'm online? Why is it that I have to justify my desire not to have every fucking shred of my existance than can be broadcast to the world at large actually broadcast? I'm already forced to deal with people on a day to day basis in meatspace, wondering what the hell they think about me and what kind of impression that I'm leaving on them, so why can't I have a nice, cozy feeling when I'm sitting at home in front of my computer bebopping around different websites. Because i can't justify it with some load of bullshit that ties into the Constitution of the United States and the good of all mankind?!? Fuck you; I may not be entitled to privacy online, but as it doesn't seem to be taking away from the public good for me to have some privacy when I am online, then who the fuck are you, the online retailing community, Bill Gates, Jesse Jackson, the W3C or the fucking Easter Bunny to say whether I am entitled to privacy?
If I scare you that much that I need a really good reason just to get some bloody privacy, just say so and I'll post my name, address, phone number, SSN, dick size and number of hairs on my ass, because I sure don't need you cringing in the corner of your shrink's office with your thumb in your ass wailing, "But I'm afraid, make him stop! He wants to be left alone, so he must be dangerous! WAAAAA!" Idiot...
So psychological warfare does not fall within the bounds of "terror"ism? While the American Heritage Dictionary definition specifies "unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence", I would think that the use of psychological attacks, such as, oh, throwing paint at someone as a representation of blood and screaming that they are a murderer or distributing "Unhapy Meals" portraying a clown as an axe wielding psychopath to children who have no concept of political motivation, qualifies wholeheartedly as terrorism. I have no problem with the members of PETA having their beliefs, but when my daughter runs out of the circus tent screaming in terror because she saw a clown in the center ring and thought it was going to kill her with an axe because some psychopath wanted to promote their political agenda while she was playing in the McDuck's playground, you can bet your ass that her daddy is going to protect her from ever having to deal with that again. Your right to protest stops where my daughter's sanity starts, as at that point, you are in the same league as any of those bomb-happy nutcases that love to blow up Embassys, except, of course, they've never attacked my family directly.
I agree that there should be some new TLDs created, just to generate some room before web addys start looking like AOL addresses (www.turner6554.com or some nonsense) but I think that addresses should be free-for-all as well. Screw cybersquatting laws and whatnot; you get there first, its yours. Giving the government the ability to regulate domain names based on content just makes it that much easier for them to slime their way into other areas of the Internet and regulate content. I suspect in five years, its going to be completely regulated by a multinational organization made up of reps from all different countries and ideas like Freenet will be right down the crapper due to Freenet servers not even being allowed to be connected to the Internet; after all, what rich corporation is going to support a project like Freenet, and what is a governmental organization going to support that isn't backed by big cash?
I don't suppose annyone is working on a new version of the Internet that is totally unrelated to the existing one, are they? I'm afraid that the one that we currently have is screwed; might not be too bad today, but it isn't getting any better as time passes. While having a.parody TLD sounds pretty cool, it'll just become another invitation for those of us who don't have lawyers on call 24/7 to take it some more from those that do.
On a side note, I don't really understand why the organization is _M_ADD. Do mothers have some sort of special insight into drinking and driving.
No, the founder of MADD just realized that if she had decided to assist one the many existing organizations attempting to help reduce the amount of drunk driving that occurs, she would have only been a peon; by creating her own organization, she gets to enjoy the power and cashflow of heading a large organization, which is far more important than joining an existing organization to make it even stronger.
Hmm, I searched his message carefully and saw no mention of asshole vegans, although I did read an amusing analysis of existing information layered with sarcasm. I do thank you for posting this, however, as it is eternally amusing to me to see this sort of response to sarcastic wit. The irony in nailing down the imagined point that you are trying to dispute is just too rich. To quote yourself:
What was the point of the message that you replied to? Think really hard.
Geez dude, pull your head out for a minute and think of the REAL uses for this tech; you get genetically enhanced cat, smarter than hell and make it a deal: it helps you out with a small task and you hook it up with catnip and cheap, easy kittens from the pound for life. You and the smart cat go to bistro, theater, McDuck's, wherever Ms. Portman happens to be spending some time. The smart cat goes and works that cutesy, feline bullshit that cats do on Natalie, she goes apeshit over cat, you rush over, faking loads of concern over the cat's whereabouts and strike up conversation with Ms. Portman without her goons beating the everliving hell out of you for approaching.
Admittedly, you could attempt this with a regular cat, but given the risk of the cat running to a hairy, fatty named Helga or pissing all over Natalie when the cat runs up to her, you'd better hold out for the enhanced model.
Its unfortunate that the "For Dummies" series has such a stupid name, as it caused me to avoid them for a long time as well. However, I finally got around to picking up a copy of C++ for Dummies out of sheer desperation, as the small collection of $50+ C++ books that I had purchased previously were pretty damned sad at conveying _why_ all of this crap is important, which is the same bloody reason I stopped going to school to learn programming, as learning syntax from a book was never a problem. That cheap, stupid looking C++ For Dummies book made things so much more clear than the 8 months that I spent in school or the myriad programming books that I had purchased and read previously. I highly recommend it to anyone that has been having a hell of a time trying to figure out why to use many of the available features in C++.
Heh, yeah, that road used to crack me up every time we'd drive past it on the way to Vegas on the weekends. I still wonder what the road was named from...
Sorry, friend, don't know what to tell you. The temptation to stick the gun barrel into my ear and squeeze the trigger gets pretty pervasive at times. Everyday, I wish that I had been born different; I wish that I wasn't as smart as I am, I wish that I was better looking, I wish that I liked associating with people, I wish I disliked computers. You ever tried to write an honest resume, one that would net you a job that you really enjoy? I bet if you did, it would really open your eyes to how fscked the world is, despite the happy tidings that people love to spread. Could you imagine an HR rep getting something like, "Love to spend hours and hours on my computer but hate dealing with the general public" and dealing with it seriously? Of course not, because its "unhealthy" to be like that, because its "wrong" to be like that; if you don't believe me, ask my mother-in-law, she'll be more than happy to tell you. "Antisocial" had become an epithet that almost ranks right up there with "asshole."
You all want to know the secret to happiness? Listen to Kintanon; get the Brittany Spears CD, the baggy drawers and the MTV feed. Join the status quo and teach yourself to love it, because the world will then open its arms and accept you, because it sure as hell doesn't want you as you are. I fully support government mandated mind control programs, because I figure if society can't accept us for who we are, they may as well make us forget all about it, so we can spend our days smiling and offering fries with that. I, for one, am sick and fucking tired of playing the silly dog and pony show for the world at large just so I can move ahead. But hey, "that's just how things are" so I guess I should stop bitching now and be a good little drone...
If Napster wanted to be a legal service, i.e., one that only allowed trading of music with public trading copyrights, that would be one thing. But that is not what Napster is about, and all the rationalizations on your part doesn't change that reality.
I am quite curious as to where you came up with this information, as I am sure that the parties looking to remove Napster would pay a large sum of money for it, as it would prove criminal intent and seal their case. I have seen an inordinate amount of spam on Usenet, so its obvious that the intention of the creators of Usenet was to distribute advertising. Of course, I've seen plenty of porn on Usenet, so it must be there to distribute copyrighted material. But then, I've been involved in a few meaningful conversations and debates on Usenet as well... bah, that couldn't possibly be what it was created for, never mind.
It is extrodinarily presumptuous on your part to speak for the intent of the creators of Napster. Perhaps their only crime was coming up with a tool that works remarkably well, like Usenet or IRC or gopher or pocketknives any other bloody thing that has been used in the commision of a crime, even though that was not the intent of the creator. I normally don't feed the trolls, but I feel that it is vitally important that anyone who may be exposed to this line of bullshit should also be aware of a reality of life: people will use a well built tool. Last goddamned thing we need is some Congresscritter reading that crap and thinking, "Of course, we should ban all MP3s and the services that could be used to distribute them!" Next thing you know, a perfectly good audio compression algorithm is outlawed, all technologies that could expidite the transfer of copyrighted work, whether in written, audio or video format, are banned and the USA is the only country in the world where it is illegal to connect to the Internet. Land of The Thief, Home of The Slave; makes me almost regret spending time in the military.
Deosyne
On an offtopic aside, I was curious as to whether any countries out there are better off; I'm afraid my knowledge of other countries is limited to the quality of the local brews.:/ Is there anywhere that would be worth taking my family to, as I am beginning to genuinely worry for my daughter's freedom in the future, what with all of the little bits of legislation of this nature passing daily. Critical mass is approaching, and I don't want her to have to deal with it.
What's wrong with MP3?
on
An MP3 Update
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· Score: 1
I understand that musicians may have an objection to having their music freely distributed, no matter how silly it seems to me, but it is beginning to drive me crazy how people keep referring to the legality of MP3s. MP3 is a fucking audio compression format; commercial music isn't the only bloody material being compressed. Yet the recording industry keeps labeling pirated music as "MP3s", which is beginning to give the format a very bad name, when the format is amazingly useful. Game developers, for instance, can use MP3 compression to pack tons more sounds into a program to create a much richer audio experience for the users in the same amount of space comsumed by those gaudy WAV files. MP3 is a wonderful format with many versitile uses, but the corporate spin doctors are using the term MP3 as if it were a violation of the law rather than a useful tool! I would truly hate to see the a highly useful compression format legislated because of the manipulation of an ignorant legal system by the deep pockets of Corporate America (not that similar situations don't occur daily...).
While I am ranting, I would like to take a moment to express how utterly ridiculous their methods of collecting "offenders" was. Many people maintain our MP3s in a single directory, myself included. When I installed Napster, I didn't give too much thought to the configuration options, I did notice that there were two directory boxes listed for MP3, so I just changed them both (which happen to default to the same directory in the first place) to my MP3 directory. Now, I do have some commercial songs in MP3 format in that directory, which I ripped from my own CDs; no Metallica, thank goodness, so I haven't been banned. But if I had some Metallica MP3s in that directory and had connected to Napster, I would have been banned, not for attempting to distribute pirated music, but from the simple desire to keep all of my crap in one place. Of course, since learning that one of the directories in the preferences is a shared directory, I have changed that directory to an empty folder (I'm on a dialup, can't spare the bandwidth to be running a bloody server). So it seems pretty wacky to me that they would presume that based on the fact that someone keeps their MP3 files in a single folder that they are attempting to distribute them; I sure as hell didn't want to share mine! DMCA my ass; methinks that Metallica and NetPD are setting themselves up for a pretty nasty harassment suit, or whatever law applies to this situation. But of course IANAL, just a pissed off dude who could have lost access to a fine service because someone wanted to interpret my laziness for criminal behavior.
Master troll, my good friend.:) Its so rare to see a troll that is so flagrant and yet still so effective; many props to you. Good point about the Beatles, too; I've rather sickened of that tripe throughout the years. People seem to use Pink Floyd as the litmus test for acid tripping, but with weird crap about yellow submarines, a chick named Lucy and that godawful walrus koo koo kachoo crap... Bleh. Good job.:)
MP3.com should just kindly explain that it was an accident that his albums got pirated and that they will rectify the situation immediately. After all, who going to believe that someone intentionally tried to get a hold of that crap, even for free?
We here at AOL/Time Warner have developed an exciting new line of keyboards to accomodate the special needs of our dedicated customers. These new keyboards will enhance the AOL experience to even higher levels than we could have ever anticipated when we first began flooding the US Postal system with free CDs.
The initial release of the AOL keyboard will include three new buttons to make the most common functions of our subscribers even easier to access. One button will serve as an additional Caps Lock key to ensure that an idle slip of the finger while embroiled in a hot cybersex session in one of our chat rooms does not inadvertently cause any lower case letters to be displayed in the message being typed. The next button will serve to run the Instant AOL Spellchecker(tm), which will assure that every third word in the message being typed is abbreviated to the smallest size possible, thus maintaining the witty and distinctive writing style that Internet users all over have come to appreciate from our subscribers. Finally, and this new feature gets me giddy with anticipation everytime I think about it, the third button will run an automated script which will generate message boxes on the user's screen that simulate dialing into the AOL login server, attempting to connect and then displaying a message box stating that the server is busy and that the user should try again later, complete with the sound of a busy signal in full stereo; now even people who do not subscribe to America Online or even have a modem can experience the wonder and excitement of being an AOL customer!
This is only the beginning of the AOL keyboard line; we have many new and exciting features planned for later releases, such as cryptic username generators, connection speed throttles and even a crash preferences control panel that will allow users to customize their computer crashes to their exact specifications. And all of these features will be available at the touch of a button! We here at AOL/Time Warner are proud to present these amazing new advances to our loyal customers and would like to thank them for working hard to maintain the fine reputation and quality of communication that has become the trademark of an America Online customer!
Deosyne
(Gee, can't tell that I do email tech support, can you?)
10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author to ask for permission
As Carmack has not given Slade permission to change the license of the product derived from his GPLed code, Slade would still have to release the source code to anyone who purchased a copy of the application, whereupon the buyer would be allowed to redistribute it freely. Slade's very poor attempt at a click-thru contract cannot violate the GPL as he did not get permission to change the license of his code. Not a very bright boy, is he? He'll likely hold out until a court case is warranted, as he sounds like the sort of prepubescent prat who would; the case will last about a half hour, as the GPL is very clear on this matter, and he will put his future potential as a software designer at risk by providing a legal precedent for future competitors to bring to light a history of illegal business practices, as well as engendering ill will within the development community; I surely would never hire him. Not likely to come up, but I avoid burning my bridges, so chalk it up to paranoia.
The point, though, is that you cannot lose more than you put in. You contribute $5 to the fund and the company gets convicted of atrocious crimes, the board of directors gets the death penalty and the fallout causes the stock market to crash to 1/10th of its current value... you lose your five bucks. That's it; no retirement plans lost, no kids denied access to college, nada but that measly five bucks.
This fund would not be an investment, it would be a means of making our case heard in a legitimate forum, the company's shareholders' meeting, as well as a means to generating some real press coverage, since the media simply could not resist such a juicy story. Is it possible that the shares purchased could rise or drop in value? Sure, but who cares? That isn't the point of the exercise, so it doesn't matter whether the stock's price changes, although it would be a delicious irony to own stock and pray that it goes down.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Man, I can't wait to see how this turns out on the coming weeks! If this works, they might be able to use this same type of procedure to help out other eye conditions. My sister has some pretty bad scarring in one of her eyes which they can't fix with surgery, but I'm wondering if the reason they can't currently fix it isn't because of the scarring itself, as they are apparently getting pretty handy with retinal transplants, so maybe a related procedure to this could help. Does anyone have further information on this procedure and what else it may be applied to in the future, such as the damage caused by glaucoma?
Deo
To quote from the editorial:
The QPL version 2.0 will hopefully end the license discussions once and for all and get us all back to coding again.
Not likely, Eirik. Sorry to bear bad tidings. Developers such as these try to do the right thing, but they aren't lawyers, and open source licenses still have yet to be put to the test in the courts, so nobody is really sure how they are going to stand up anyhow. Hell, GPL supporters spend gigabytes arguing over the fine points of the GPL, nevertheless other licenses. So there are no truly effective guidelines to creating an open source license, and "just use the GPL" doesn't work for everyone, nor should it have to.
It seems as though there is a decidedly hostile atmosphere surrounding open source software; when a company decides to open the source to their code, they seem to be opening themselves up to attacks against their business practices by the OSS legions, even when they had no problems when the source was closed! Admittedly, it is a small portion of the open source supporters that do this, but they are quite vocal, and the last thing that a company needs when considering a controversial (within the business community) move like opening the source code to their software, needs is bad press associated with the decision. I am certainly glad that Trolltech was not in this position, as they were already OSS supporters, but even they, after having showed this support for several years, still get flak from the community because there license wasn't written to the critic's specifcations, as if Trolltech was going to announce tomorrow, "Ha, fuck you! We left a nice little loophole in our license, so no more damn source code for you!" Its a wonder that traditionally closed source businesses ever decide to open their source, considering the immense risk, not from hax0rs or competitiors, but from the bad press that can result from the crowing of OSS supporters! It never ceases to amaze me how a bunch of computer geeks suddenly become Harvard law professors just because the law happens to involve software. Give these folks a break, already; sure, their licenses may not be ironclad bastions of open source might, but damn, try to be cool about it! After all, they were cool enough to release the source code to their products, and they sure as hell didn't have to do that, as closed source software seems to sell just fine.
Deo
Heh, methinks that you think of too large a scale. :) Why not start a local LUG? Hell, it costs next to nothing if you just take a little time and trouble to spread the word yourself. You'd be amazed at how cool some local shop owners can be about letting you pimp your LUG in their shop. Don't worry about attending some big show, just get other Linux geeks in your area to come hang out in the same place to talk tech and swap distros. After a while, when you have quite a few people in the LUG who are willing to put in a little work, you can host a little installfest; nothing major, just a local event to allow the closet Linux geeks in your area to come out and hang with the LUG in an uninvolved manner, unlike if they attended a meeting. It also gives local business folks and non-Linux techies a chance to come take a peek and see what the hell the ruckus is about.
:)
Conferences are all fine and good when there is a huge following in a region or you have a lot of experience in organizing gatherings and want to try something on a large scale, but since the scene in your area appears to be so dead that you only know a couple of other Linux users, you should take the initiative to start a little something of your own to help spread the word and build interest in your area. Who knows? In a couple of years, after you have a few small installfests under your belt and have planned a couple of decent conferences, maybe you'll be the one planning the Linux blowout of the year, with Linus doing the keynote honors.
Deo
Man, if I had a sweet looking rig like a Cray 2, I'd have to toss in a decent computer with an excellent sound card, craploads of hard drive space and a network card. Then I'd drop all of my MP3s on it, mount some killer speakers around it and have the most badass sound system around. :) Damn, but that Cray 2 looks sweet...
Deo
I can certainly understand not worrying about it if you just buy a new system every couple of years, but for those of us who try to keep every piece of hardware for as long as possible, even after upgrading, it does make sense to squeeze out as much life as possible by taking simple precautions such as extra cooling or even underclocking. Hell, I still have a TI Silent 700 data terminal, an 8086 system and a little 286 that still run perfectly fine (well, the ink ribbon on the Silent 700 is pretty dry, so it prints VERY light :)), so I understand the value of taking care of my equipment. It just depends on whether you want to have the CPU be usable in ten years. :)
Deosyne
Please don't take this the wrong way, as I really do think that you had some interesting points, but your really need to put some paragraph breaks in large chunks of writing; most people reading this thread probably skipped over your post due to the mass conflag of letters that assaulted their eyes in a solid block.
:)
I'm not flaming you, honestly I'm not, I'm simply suggesting that in the future when you write out long pieces, break them down into shorter paragraphs to make them more esthetically pleasing to the eye, as large blocks of text without breaks are uncomfortable to deal with. I do appreciate you fleshing out your ideas, though.
Deo
Heh, you might want to look at Siggy's mods on his past messages. Hell, I'd toss you a point for Insightful just for drawing that WB reference; after all, they both spew forth loads of crap, are well aware that what they spew forth is crap and yet they both nail down the ratings. There's something to be said for knowing the demographic that you're playing to, even if they don't really know themselves. :)
Deo
Apparantly there is a terrible amount of legislation, along with the wasted expense and time, necessary to make the Internet "kid friendly," so why not just cut the crap and make the smart decision: Ban kids from using the Internet. "Oh no," you say, "its such a wonderous resource for them to learn from! We can't do that!" Cry me a river; there is NOTHING available on the Internet that kids cannot get from somewhere else, and with reasonable ease. The best that I could do in high school is to dial into BBSs, looking for Doom WADs; sure as hell never found any research paper materials there. So how could I ever have possibly learned anything? I went to the friggin' library! I went to the museum! I picked up that dead tree copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica vol. 8 and started reading!
Why in the hell does everything on the bloody planet have to be "kid friendly"? What about us adults; you know, the people responsible for actually keeping society running?!? A while back, the local gummint decided that full nudity in a strip club was unacceptable, so they passed a law that required a modicum of cover on the dancers. Know why? For the sake of children, according to the pencilheads that pushed it through. Since I haven't stepped foot in a strip club since I left the Navy, I shouldn't sweat it though, right? Hell with that, I was rightly pissed off. Restricting the behavior of consenting adults in a place that kids can't even enter?!? Shit, if that doesn't hammer down a precident...
What the hell happened? I am really dying to know this, its not just rhetorical spewage. I would love to know what sickness has overcome this country that has everyone convinced that everything must revolve around the segment of the population that doesn't contribute anything to society except sewage and noise! I'm a father, I love my daughter dearly and would kill anyone who would try to harm her in any way; but by the same token, I am not such a repressed simpleton to think that other people's actions should be legislated just to grant her the ability to do something that she really doesn't need to be doing anyhow!
Do I really think that children should be banned from using the Internet? No, of course not, but if the only other choice is to shape the Internet around children, then that's the vote I take. When it comes to government legislation, you can't have it both ways; there may be advantages to a new bill, but there will always be a corollary inherent to it as well. Its just a matter of how much freedom that you are willing to trade for security.
Deo
Simply because I would like my privacy while I'm online? Why is it that I have to justify my desire not to have every fucking shred of my existance than can be broadcast to the world at large actually broadcast? I'm already forced to deal with people on a day to day basis in meatspace, wondering what the hell they think about me and what kind of impression that I'm leaving on them, so why can't I have a nice, cozy feeling when I'm sitting at home in front of my computer bebopping around different websites. Because i can't justify it with some load of bullshit that ties into the Constitution of the United States and the good of all mankind?!? Fuck you; I may not be entitled to privacy online, but as it doesn't seem to be taking away from the public good for me to have some privacy when I am online, then who the fuck are you, the online retailing community, Bill Gates, Jesse Jackson, the W3C or the fucking Easter Bunny to say whether I am entitled to privacy?
If I scare you that much that I need a really good reason just to get some bloody privacy, just say so and I'll post my name, address, phone number, SSN, dick size and number of hairs on my ass, because I sure don't need you cringing in the corner of your shrink's office with your thumb in your ass wailing, "But I'm afraid, make him stop! He wants to be left alone, so he must be dangerous! WAAAAA!" Idiot...
Deo
That is by far the funniest goddamned thing that I have read in a long, long time. Thank you very much for posting it.
So psychological warfare does not fall within the bounds of "terror"ism? While the American Heritage Dictionary definition specifies "unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence", I would think that the use of psychological attacks, such as, oh, throwing paint at someone as a representation of blood and screaming that they are a murderer or distributing "Unhapy Meals" portraying a clown as an axe wielding psychopath to children who have no concept of political motivation, qualifies wholeheartedly as terrorism. I have no problem with the members of PETA having their beliefs, but when my daughter runs out of the circus tent screaming in terror because she saw a clown in the center ring and thought it was going to kill her with an axe because some psychopath wanted to promote their political agenda while she was playing in the McDuck's playground, you can bet your ass that her daddy is going to protect her from ever having to deal with that again. Your right to protest stops where my daughter's sanity starts, as at that point, you are in the same league as any of those bomb-happy nutcases that love to blow up Embassys, except, of course, they've never attacked my family directly.
I agree that there should be some new TLDs created, just to generate some room before web addys start looking like AOL addresses (www.turner6554.com or some nonsense) but I think that addresses should be free-for-all as well. Screw cybersquatting laws and whatnot; you get there first, its yours. Giving the government the ability to regulate domain names based on content just makes it that much easier for them to slime their way into other areas of the Internet and regulate content. I suspect in five years, its going to be completely regulated by a multinational organization made up of reps from all different countries and ideas like Freenet will be right down the crapper due to Freenet servers not even being allowed to be connected to the Internet; after all, what rich corporation is going to support a project like Freenet, and what is a governmental organization going to support that isn't backed by big cash?
.parody TLD sounds pretty cool, it'll just become another invitation for those of us who don't have lawyers on call 24/7 to take it some more from those that do.
I don't suppose annyone is working on a new version of the Internet that is totally unrelated to the existing one, are they? I'm afraid that the one that we currently have is screwed; might not be too bad today, but it isn't getting any better as time passes. While having a
On a side note, I don't really understand why the organization is _M_ADD. Do mothers have some sort of special insight into drinking and driving.
No, the founder of MADD just realized that if she had decided to assist one the many existing organizations attempting to help reduce the amount of drunk driving that occurs, she would have only been a peon; by creating her own organization, she gets to enjoy the power and cashflow of heading a large organization, which is far more important than joining an existing organization to make it even stronger.
Hmm, I searched his message carefully and saw no mention of asshole vegans, although I did read an amusing analysis of existing information layered with sarcasm. I do thank you for posting this, however, as it is eternally amusing to me to see this sort of response to sarcastic wit. The irony in nailing down the imagined point that you are trying to dispute is just too rich. To quote yourself:
What was the point of the message that you replied to? Think really hard.
Geez dude, pull your head out for a minute and think of the REAL uses for this tech; you get genetically enhanced cat, smarter than hell and make it a deal: it helps you out with a small task and you hook it up with catnip and cheap, easy kittens from the pound for life. You and the smart cat go to bistro, theater, McDuck's, wherever Ms. Portman happens to be spending some time. The smart cat goes and works that cutesy, feline bullshit that cats do on Natalie, she goes apeshit over cat, you rush over, faking loads of concern over the cat's whereabouts and strike up conversation with Ms. Portman without her goons beating the everliving hell out of you for approaching.
Admittedly, you could attempt this with a regular cat, but given the risk of the cat running to a hairy, fatty named Helga or pissing all over Natalie when the cat runs up to her, you'd better hold out for the enhanced model.
Deo
Its unfortunate that the "For Dummies" series has such a stupid name, as it caused me to avoid them for a long time as well. However, I finally got around to picking up a copy of C++ for Dummies out of sheer desperation, as the small collection of $50+ C++ books that I had purchased previously were pretty damned sad at conveying _why_ all of this crap is important, which is the same bloody reason I stopped going to school to learn programming, as learning syntax from a book was never a problem. That cheap, stupid looking C++ For Dummies book made things so much more clear than the 8 months that I spent in school or the myriad programming books that I had purchased and read previously. I highly recommend it to anyone that has been having a hell of a time trying to figure out why to use many of the available features in C++.
Deosyne
Heh, yeah, that road used to crack me up every time we'd drive past it on the way to Vegas on the weekends. I still wonder what the road was named from...
Deo
Sorry, friend, don't know what to tell you. The temptation to stick the gun barrel into my ear and squeeze the trigger gets pretty pervasive at times. Everyday, I wish that I had been born different; I wish that I wasn't as smart as I am, I wish that I was better looking, I wish that I liked associating with people, I wish I disliked computers. You ever tried to write an honest resume, one that would net you a job that you really enjoy? I bet if you did, it would really open your eyes to how fscked the world is, despite the happy tidings that people love to spread. Could you imagine an HR rep getting something like, "Love to spend hours and hours on my computer but hate dealing with the general public" and dealing with it seriously? Of course not, because its "unhealthy" to be like that, because its "wrong" to be like that; if you don't believe me, ask my mother-in-law, she'll be more than happy to tell you. "Antisocial" had become an epithet that almost ranks right up there with "asshole."
You all want to know the secret to happiness? Listen to Kintanon; get the Brittany Spears CD, the baggy drawers and the MTV feed. Join the status quo and teach yourself to love it, because the world will then open its arms and accept you, because it sure as hell doesn't want you as you are. I fully support government mandated mind control programs, because I figure if society can't accept us for who we are, they may as well make us forget all about it, so we can spend our days smiling and offering fries with that. I, for one, am sick and fucking tired of playing the silly dog and pony show for the world at large just so I can move ahead. But hey, "that's just how things are" so I guess I should stop bitching now and be a good little drone...
Deosyne
If Napster wanted to be a legal service, i.e., one that only allowed trading of music with public trading copyrights, that would be one thing. But that is not what Napster is about, and all the rationalizations on your part doesn't change that reality.
:/ Is there anywhere that would be worth taking my family to, as I am beginning to genuinely worry for my daughter's freedom in the future, what with all of the little bits of legislation of this nature passing daily. Critical mass is approaching, and I don't want her to have to deal with it.
I am quite curious as to where you came up with this information, as I am sure that the parties looking to remove Napster would pay a large sum of money for it, as it would prove criminal intent and seal their case. I have seen an inordinate amount of spam on Usenet, so its obvious that the intention of the creators of Usenet was to distribute advertising. Of course, I've seen plenty of porn on Usenet, so it must be there to distribute copyrighted material. But then, I've been involved in a few meaningful conversations and debates on Usenet as well... bah, that couldn't possibly be what it was created for, never mind.
It is extrodinarily presumptuous on your part to speak for the intent of the creators of Napster. Perhaps their only crime was coming up with a tool that works remarkably well, like Usenet or IRC or gopher or pocketknives any other bloody thing that has been used in the commision of a crime, even though that was not the intent of the creator. I normally don't feed the trolls, but I feel that it is vitally important that anyone who may be exposed to this line of bullshit should also be aware of a reality of life: people will use a well built tool. Last goddamned thing we need is some Congresscritter reading that crap and thinking, "Of course, we should ban all MP3s and the services that could be used to distribute them!" Next thing you know, a perfectly good audio compression algorithm is outlawed, all technologies that could expidite the transfer of copyrighted work, whether in written, audio or video format, are banned and the USA is the only country in the world where it is illegal to connect to the Internet. Land of The Thief, Home of The Slave; makes me almost regret spending time in the military.
Deosyne
On an offtopic aside, I was curious as to whether any countries out there are better off; I'm afraid my knowledge of other countries is limited to the quality of the local brews.
I understand that musicians may have an objection to having their music freely distributed, no matter how silly it seems to me, but it is beginning to drive me crazy how people keep referring to the legality of MP3s. MP3 is a fucking audio compression format; commercial music isn't the only bloody material being compressed. Yet the recording industry keeps labeling pirated music as "MP3s", which is beginning to give the format a very bad name, when the format is amazingly useful. Game developers, for instance, can use MP3 compression to pack tons more sounds into a program to create a much richer audio experience for the users in the same amount of space comsumed by those gaudy WAV files. MP3 is a wonderful format with many versitile uses, but the corporate spin doctors are using the term MP3 as if it were a violation of the law rather than a useful tool! I would truly hate to see the a highly useful compression format legislated because of the manipulation of an ignorant legal system by the deep pockets of Corporate America (not that similar situations don't occur daily...).
While I am ranting, I would like to take a moment to express how utterly ridiculous their methods of collecting "offenders" was. Many people maintain our MP3s in a single directory, myself included. When I installed Napster, I didn't give too much thought to the configuration options, I did notice that there were two directory boxes listed for MP3, so I just changed them both (which happen to default to the same directory in the first place) to my MP3 directory. Now, I do have some commercial songs in MP3 format in that directory, which I ripped from my own CDs; no Metallica, thank goodness, so I haven't been banned. But if I had some Metallica MP3s in that directory and had connected to Napster, I would have been banned, not for attempting to distribute pirated music, but from the simple desire to keep all of my crap in one place. Of course, since learning that one of the directories in the preferences is a shared directory, I have changed that directory to an empty folder (I'm on a dialup, can't spare the bandwidth to be running a bloody server). So it seems pretty wacky to me that they would presume that based on the fact that someone keeps their MP3 files in a single folder that they are attempting to distribute them; I sure as hell didn't want to share mine! DMCA my ass; methinks that Metallica and NetPD are setting themselves up for a pretty nasty harassment suit, or whatever law applies to this situation. But of course IANAL, just a pissed off dude who could have lost access to a fine service because someone wanted to interpret my laziness for criminal behavior.
Deosyne
Master troll, my good friend. :) Its so rare to see a troll that is so flagrant and yet still so effective; many props to you. Good point about the Beatles, too; I've rather sickened of that tripe throughout the years. People seem to use Pink Floyd as the litmus test for acid tripping, but with weird crap about yellow submarines, a chick named Lucy and that godawful walrus koo koo kachoo crap... Bleh. Good job. :)
Deosyne
MP3.com should just kindly explain that it was an accident that his albums got pirated and that they will rectify the situation immediately. After all, who going to believe that someone intentionally tried to get a hold of that crap, even for free?
Deosyne
We here at AOL/Time Warner have developed an exciting new line of keyboards to accomodate the special needs of our dedicated customers. These new keyboards will enhance the AOL experience to even higher levels than we could have ever anticipated when we first began flooding the US Postal system with free CDs.
The initial release of the AOL keyboard will include three new buttons to make the most common functions of our subscribers even easier to access. One button will serve as an additional Caps Lock key to ensure that an idle slip of the finger while embroiled in a hot cybersex session in one of our chat rooms does not inadvertently cause any lower case letters to be displayed in the message being typed. The next button will serve to run the Instant AOL Spellchecker(tm), which will assure that every third word in the message being typed is abbreviated to the smallest size possible, thus maintaining the witty and distinctive writing style that Internet users all over have come to appreciate from our subscribers. Finally, and this new feature gets me giddy with anticipation everytime I think about it, the third button will run an automated script which will generate message boxes on the user's screen that simulate dialing into the AOL login server, attempting to connect and then displaying a message box stating that the server is busy and that the user should try again later, complete with the sound of a busy signal in full stereo; now even people who do not subscribe to America Online or even have a modem can experience the wonder and excitement of being an AOL customer!
This is only the beginning of the AOL keyboard line; we have many new and exciting features planned for later releases, such as cryptic username generators, connection speed throttles and even a crash preferences control panel that will allow users to customize their computer crashes to their exact specifications. And all of these features will be available at the touch of a button! We here at AOL/Time Warner are proud to present these amazing new advances to our loyal customers and would like to thank them for working hard to maintain the fine reputation and quality of communication that has become the trademark of an America Online customer!
Deosyne
(Gee, can't tell that I do email tech support, can you?)
He certainly could charge for the software, but:
10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author to ask for permission
As Carmack has not given Slade permission to change the license of the product derived from his GPLed code, Slade would still have to release the source code to anyone who purchased a copy of the application, whereupon the buyer would be allowed to redistribute it freely. Slade's very poor attempt at a click-thru contract cannot violate the GPL as he did not get permission to change the license of his code. Not a very bright boy, is he? He'll likely hold out until a court case is warranted, as he sounds like the sort of prepubescent prat who would; the case will last about a half hour, as the GPL is very clear on this matter, and he will put his future potential as a software designer at risk by providing a legal precedent for future competitors to bring to light a history of illegal business practices, as well as engendering ill will within the development community; I surely would never hire him. Not likely to come up, but I avoid burning my bridges, so chalk it up to paranoia.
Deosyne
The point, though, is that you cannot lose more than you put in. You contribute $5 to the fund and the company gets convicted of atrocious crimes, the board of directors gets the death penalty and the fallout causes the stock market to crash to 1/10th of its current value... you lose your five bucks. That's it; no retirement plans lost, no kids denied access to college, nada but that measly five bucks.
:)
This fund would not be an investment, it would be a means of making our case heard in a legitimate forum, the company's shareholders' meeting, as well as a means to generating some real press coverage, since the media simply could not resist such a juicy story. Is it possible that the shares purchased could rise or drop in value? Sure, but who cares? That isn't the point of the exercise, so it doesn't matter whether the stock's price changes, although it would be a delicious irony to own stock and pray that it goes down.
Deosyne